President Donald Trump won the election day vote in Georgia. But remember that less than 20 percent of the total votes in the November election were cast on election day. He had a narrower lead among those who voted early in person (52.7 to 46.4 percent for Democrat Joe Biden) and lost decisively among the absentee by mail crowd (getting just 34.3 percent). The largest share of the November vote came from early voting in person (53.9 percent) and absentee by mail accounted for 26.3 percent.
Thus, if the Democratic U.S. Senate candidates build a big lead through absentees and/or early voting, GOP incumbents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler might not be able to overcome those deficits on Tuesday.
Yes, the early vote so far (based on the georgiavotes.com website) has been heavily black (31.5 percent)— and that is higher than the 27.8 percent it was in the November election. (In fact, the black share of the electorate in November most likely was lower than it was in the Obama years— yes, lower— the difference being that Biden ended up with higher share of the white vote than did Barack Obama or even Bill Clinton.)
Biden for example won nearly a third of the vote in heavily Republican Forsyth County, a percentage no Democratic presidential candidate has won there in decades. But it looks like a lot of the black share of the early vote is not coming so much from traditionally Democratic DeKalb and Fulton counties but from the adjoining suburbs that have shifted from red to blue over the last 15 or so years (Douglas, Gwinnett, Henry and Rockdale counties).
Turnout by congressional district so far is running highest in the districts that voted for Biden, the highest being the suburban Congressional District once held by Republican Karen Handel, which Biden won by 11 points last month. The second is John Lewis’s old 5th Congressional District that voted 86 percent for Biden.
The lowest turnout so far has been the conservative Congressional District 14 in northwest Georgia. Some of that might be its orientation toward Tennessee, since the upper corner of the district is in the Chattanooga media market.
Here is the simplest way of looking at the runoffs: Republicans must hold down their losses in the 29-county metro Atlanta area. Democrat Biden won the region by 15 points last month and won while Democrat gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams won the region by 14 points in 2018 and narrowly lost to now-Gov. Brian Kemp. Republicans probably can win if they hold the Democrats to the mid–50s, maybe 54-55 percent, in metro Atlanta.
